The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-06-18
THE MOSQUITO.
ANNOYING CHILD OF The SWAMP.
Found from the Tropics TO the Poles -eeneaIos,
and Biography Ho~ the Cruel Insect Has Routed
Armies and Depopulated Cities.

The following essay on the mosquito
we find in back number of the Intted
States MdgdziHe:
From "A score of clock towers rolls in
rich reverberation the musical stroke of
the midnight hour. The weary way
farer wipes from his classic brow the
headed drops of perspiration. and betakes
himself To his nightly couch, with fer
vent hopes of "A charming Midsummer
| Nights Dream" He slips costly beneath
the sheets, and drops the mosquito cur
talns with a laugh of triumph al the
| foiled conspirators without. Happy be-
| ing, we can see soft rest creep Der thy
weary limbs. and gentle slumber drop on
thee Its net of gauzy mists. From afar
there comes to thy ear the tender hum
| of the wing of approaching dreams.
| With folded pInions they lightly rest
their fairy feet upon thy manly cheek.
A gentle Utilization soothes thy weary
senses, and-Ouch! Slap. Bang. War
suddenly breaks loose, and this wild
slogan rings on the midnight air: "Drat
| il all. there's rascally mosquito under
the curtain, and ten to one il get
a wink of sleep this blessed night
Have any of the readers been i'm this
delightful situation! Away go sleep and
| dreams. Vanish sweet hope and rich
expectancy. With clenched teeth, pro-
truding eyes, and strained musclesthe un-
happy wretchdeals at unconscious insect
blows that would crush a mummy, and
mayhap succeeds in hammering his own
cheek and nose into jelly. And then.
insult added To injury, up scars the un-
| hurt tormentor with his old musical
| hum,as if he would ask, pray what was
all the row about! / hope, dear sir. you
have not hurt yourself.
Have you been there? If you have not
| you have one of the sensations of your
life to experience. And we can safely
venture to bet that more midnight curses
| have been lavished upon the gauzy.
| winged trumpeter of the summer night
| than on any half dozen of the torments
which render mans life on the earth
aught but sinecure. The story of the
misquito remains untold. Tones have
been lavished upon the animal of the for
est and the desert. II is time the biogra-
ply of the child of the swamp was being
written, and to this neglected duty we
propose to devote ourselves.
The mosquito is the most ubiquitous of
| animals. Other creatures have "A limited
| range, but the home of the mosquito is
| everywhere. Alike he revels in the
scorching heats of the tropics and the icy
chill of the frigid zones. In every con
tinent he blows his tiny horn. In the
| oi IuIoIbts<tHist h1Iftd.
| of North and South America, he presents
his bill. Desert and city are alike To
him. Wherever there is blood To be
| drawn there he is with his little La meet,
| the ubiquitous phlebotomist which gen
erous nature has sent us for our sins.
| Man can fly from haunts oflion and tiger.
| He can vanquish the armyworm and dis
count the potato bug From heat and
| cold, from debt and disease, he may es-
/ I.,.tf from tbat
| himself in the heart of the tropics, the
| little hum-bug is there before him. Mi
CRATE to the icy shores of Greenland, he
will be greeted with welcoming hum.
| Fire and water are useless, and even
| Paris Green a vain delusion. The valiant
insect laughs to scorn such weak in
| ventions of the enemy" and soon con
| vinces his foes that he still lives and still
| demands IA liquidation of that little
| BILL"
Before giving the history of the mos
quito il may he best to present hIs gene
| alogy, and to describe his curious life
story, which is certainly not without its
points of interest. He belongs To the in
sect family, familiarly known as the
Gnat, or Culex, to give its scientific title.
| The insect order i'm which this family fits
] is the Diptera, or two-wInged: the insects
of all other orders having four wings.
| The best known representative of the
| gnat family is Culex Pipius, or the com
mon gnat, the blood-sucker of the insect
tribe. There is considerable variety i'm
gnats, but they run SO closely together
| that il is not easy To decide where gnat
ends and mosquito begins, though the
latter name was first given To Cuban
| species.
| The popularity i'm the anatomy of the
| gnat is the formation of its mouth parts,
| which are produced into a slender ros-
trum or beak, nearly half of the length
of the insect. This beak is composed of
seven pieces, and comprises an external
sheath in two pieces, within which are
fine-letting instruments. These are Of
different shapes, some being barbed like
bees sting. etc. One writer thus feel
| ingly describes them: Every form of
instrument of torture seems used by the
| Anu Daria mosquito: teeth, drills, au-
gers, saws, tweezers, barbs, pincers, files
and hoods. Each lends an acute thrill
of novelty 10 the pain of every success
i've bite and prevents every sameness
of suffering" This sufferer perhaps
Judged more by his feelings than by any
anatomical investigation"
The flesh once pierced by these varied
instruments, the insect forces into itsome
/ fluid secretion. whose object seems To be
to make the blood more liquid so that il
will flow more easily. And this is poison
Gus secretion which causes half che
| trouble. Some declare that the insect
| if left to suck blood at its leisure, will
| end by sucking out its poison, and thus
leave no pain behind it. But we might
reasonably inquire who is the individual
| with the sublime patience to test this
| theory and quietly wait without a groan
or a slap, until the insect had finished its
interesting operations. Ii is more than
could be safely asked of poor, suffering
human nature.
There is another curious feature con-
nected with our tiny midnight friend,
which we hope we will be excused for
mentioning. Ii is only the female mos
quito which mas blood-sucking propen-
sites. The male leave us severely alone.
We might be pardoned for wishing that
there were only males; for the two rea-
sons that no tribute of blood would then
be demanded of us. and that the tribe Of
MOSQUITOES would come to "a sudden end.
The female is also said, If it cannot get
blood. to feed on the honey of flowers
but let no misguided moral think to es
cape it by setting out pots Of honey as q
bribe. II loves blood too well to be
bought off by any such base subterfuge.
The hum of the mosquito is not made
by its mouth. 1t has other Uses for iti
mouth organs than as noise producers
The rapid vibration of the wings pro
duces the sound, and as they are said "a
vibrate three thousand times in a minute
we can readily understand their powers
in this respect.
One of the common habits of the gnatf
is to associate in clouds, which have beer
sometimes seen so dense as To give rise
to alarms of fire. Thus in one case they
appeared in such masses around thu
spire of Salisbury Cathedral as To resem
bic column of smoke issuing from tia,
building. In like case in Silesia. In
1912 AN alarm of fire was actually given
| In upnIsf lsSlG they anIeared at OK fnrd